Liverpool-based composer and guitarist Luce Mawdsley (they/them) crafts sonic tapestries woven from progressive experimentation and poetic inspiration. An autistic, nonbinary artist, Mawdsley’s work fearlessly explores the intersections of neurodivergence, mental health, and queerness, transmuting personal experience into subversive narratives of gender, sexuality, place, and identity. Their creative process is a journey of discovery, allowing the music to organically emerge as a landscape shaped by curiosity and intuitive intention.
Mawdsley’s latest offering, Northwest & Nebulous, released via their own Pure O Records, paints vivid sonic pictures of queer cowboy vistas nestled along the Northern English coastline. This lush instrumental album draws from a rich palette of folk, Americana, and soundtrack influences, showcasing Mawdsley’s romantic and explorative sensibilities. Recorded within the resonant walls of Liverpool’s Grade II listed Scandinavian Church, the album features a core chamber ensemble, with Mawdsley on guitar, organ, and percussion, complemented by clarinet and viola.
Northwest & Nebulous is a meticulously crafted world in sound, each track a vignette within a larger narrative framework, echoing themes of water, rippling melodies, and ethereal distortions. The album’s title, a nod to both the geographic specificity of Formby and the nebulous nature of Mawdsley’s artistic vision, reflects their embrace of fluidity and unfixed states.
As a non-binary, neurodivergent composer, Mawdsley’s music becomes a poignant document of evolving identity, inviting listeners to project their own narratives onto its textured soundscapes. It’s a generous offering, a space where experimental and traditional musical languages converge, inviting listeners to construct their own cinematic experiences within its evocative sonic architecture.
Prior to Luce’s forthcoming show at Liverpool Tung’s Auditorium, we caught up with Luce Mawdsley to discuss NorthWest & Nebulous.
LN: Northwest & Nebulous seems to be a departure from your previous work, particularly Vulgar Displays of Affection. What inspired this shift towards a more cinematic and meditative sound?
Luce Mawdsley: A transition of internal landscapes perhaps, VDOA is a piece of work in which I explored my experience with Intrusive thoughts and OCD, an attempt to further understand it’s impact and relinquish myself from the shame attached to these conditions. NW&NB is a testament to the joy and possibility that opened itself up to me when I decided not to allow these things to define how I navigate the world.
LN: The album title, Northwest & Nebulous, seems to capture the album’s atmosphere. Can you elaborate on the meaning behind the title and how it relates to the music?
LM: I suppose it’s a sort of a metaphysical set of coordinates for the themes on the record, the landscape and the unfixed state, a reference to the queerness of time, matter and sentient experience.
LN: The reviews mention the album evokes a strong sense of place, specifically the coastal landscape of Merseyside. How did your personal connection to this landscape influence the album’s composition and overall feel?
LM: I was born and grew up on this magnificent shifting coastline, it’s a safe place that feels bound to my sense of curiosity, awe and nurture, things I wanted to reconnect with in both my personal life and my music making.
LN: Sojourn is a very beautiful piece of music. Can you talk about the inspiration behind this particular track and what you hope listeners experience when they hear it?
LM: Thank you very much. I’ve found it affirming that people have connected to this piece so well. Initially it was intended as a demo and a lot of the parts were improvised sketches, I think it’s this capture of spontaneous play that is an important part of its evocativeness.
At the time I recorded this piece of music I rediscovered the possibility that I could experience happiness, something that felt so far from me for a long time, this was a big deal for me. Similarly I also found I was able to experience melancholy detached from depression which I felt a strange appreciation for, maybe these emotions are imprinted in the music. I think hot summer days in the Lake District are tangled up with my memory of this time too, that’s where the title comes from at least. We played this song at my mums funeral so it now has a lot of layers of meaning to me, I like that music keeps growing like that.
In terms of my hope for the listener, I aimed to avoid convincing the listener of any one narrative, the music is a gift and I just hope that it conjures a valuable experience to those generous enough to take the time to engage with it.
LN: The album blends various genres like experimental country, neoclassical chamber folk, and so called “Scouse Americana”. How did you navigate the fusion of these diverse styles, and what challenges did you encounter in creating a cohesive sound?
LM: I think Americana music has always felt like home for me, I had Marty Robbins and Elvis as my earliest sonic stirrings, maybe they can rename it “Wool Americana” since I was born in Southport though. I remember having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Simon & Garfunkel were from the USA too, the music was so entangled in my experience of moving through the English countryside in a white Vauxhall Cavalier on family holidays. Sound and place again.
These fusion of styles are just part of the palette of music that I find interesting and are part of my creative personality, something that was nurtured with the pleasure of working with talented and sympathetic musicians who have experience working in these genres too. The challenges around developing a sense of cohesiveness were mainly due to the fact that I do not read music, and time and money of course,I think it turned out well in the end however, it all made sense when we started making noises.
LN: You’ve collaborated with Nicholas Branton and Rachel Nicholas on this project. How did their contributions shape the album’s sound, and what was the collaborative process like?
LM: It’s such a beautiful thing to share a musical relationship with your friends and I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to make waves with such unique personalities from a diverse range of musical backgrounds. Nicholas and Rachel brought an emotional breadth of pallet and set of timbres to the pieces that realised the music in such an evocative way,I sort of got to sit back and hear the conjuring, I am very grateful.
LN: Likewise, The Growing Rooms features Jon Davies on piano. How did this collaboration come about and what did he add to the song?
LM: Jon is a good friend of mine, a beautiful and talented being, he makes incredible music himself under the name Kepla. Perhaps at the time he had been sharing mixes from his album In Furnace, (there is a gut wrenching piano composition at the end of the record called ‘Sanctifier’!) Anyway, we workshopped some ideas at his place using a piano which was fittingly adrift of concert pitch which required some technical jiu jitsu to accommodate for, and then did the final recording with Rich Harris Bond at Wise Tree Studios. Jon brought a majestic warmth and elegance to the music, It felt like he was holding the piece in his arms when we were recording it, it sort of makes sense as he does give very good hugs.
LN: As a neurodivergent and non-binary artist, how do your personal experiences and identity inform your creative process and the themes explored in your music? You’ve mentioned that the album is intended to provide listeners with their own cinematic experiences. What kind of imagery or emotions do you hope the music evokes in those who listen?
LM: My work exists due to the fact that I find it very difficult to articulate my experience in any sort of normative fashion. I want to build worlds with sound that celebrate alternative ways of thinking and doing and I’m curious about the beauty of the queer universe we flicker within. I hope the music evokes a landscape from which people can ask questions of themselves and the world around them, keep it queer, keep it curious.
LN: You must be excited by your upcoming show at Liverpool’s Tung Auditorium. What can we expect?
LM: Indeed I am! The Tung is probably my favourite acoustic space in Liverpool so I am very, I will be performing pieces from NW&NB as well as some works in progress which I have been workshopping recently. Performing alongside me will be my dear friends and extraordinary musicians, Nicholas Branton on clarinets and Michael Paul Metcalfe on drum set. I will be playing various guitars and am tentatively hoping to play my new lapsteel guitar I bought myself for the seasonal holidays… grateful to David McTague and the lovely folks at The Tung for having me. I think it’s nearly sold out too which I am most flattered by.
Luce Mawdsley appears at Liverpool’s The Tung Auditorium, on Wednesday 19 February 2025. Tickets are available now.
Follow @lucemawdsley on Instagram for updates.
Steve Kinrade – @kinras66
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